Love is a funny thing. Who would have ever thought that the Country Mouse would’ve fallen in love with four new females? Yet as 2012 draws to a close the mouse house’s new inhabitants, four Isa Brown chickens, have captured his heart and his imagination.
But this chicken love dance almost ended before it began when we hit a stumbling block – what were we going to call our feathery fowls? Yes, naming our new friends proved an interesting exercise in compromise. For weeks I was on high rotation with the same simple question, “We get to name two each. What do you want to call yours?”
The Country Mouse was adamant, “K and F-n-C”
My vision of the CM calling across the backyard “F-n-C!”, “F-n-C!” to some poor bird was enough for the Court (me) to immediately dismiss his suggestion. I figured he’d been having a Rake-ish moment, given that he is a recent and enthusiastic convert to the antics of ABC’S wicked criminal defence barrister Cleaver Greene.
After a series of other unsuitable names were proposed by him - Henny Penny and Chicken Nugget anyone? - I threatened to withdraw his naming rights altogether, so he took the position that he would have to see them in the feather so to speak before he could do any naming. Soon after they arrived, he dutifully watched them for signs of individuality and personality and he settled on ‘Shaker’ (shake a tail feather) and ‘Windy’ (wind beneath her wings) who soon morphed into Wendy.
Of course my naming suggestions were completely brilliant, just not to him. ‘Crosby’, ‘Stills’, ‘Nash’ and ‘Young’ was dismissed with a dry “they are girls”. My other suggestion, that they be called after girls immortalised in song titles: Peggy Sue, Sweet Caroline, Barbara Ann and Sharona (I fancied picking up a lovely hen and serenading her with “My, my, myyyyy Sharona!”) was also vetoed. He supported ‘Dixie’ (the obvious Dixie Chicks) and given that I love the name ‘Clementine’, (which he doesn’t) he generously agreed to this, although she’s now developed the classic Aussie moniker ‘Clemmy’.
The local Council advised we could have up to ten chooks, but no roosters and we were to promise to consult our neighbours in advance. One set of neighbours provided an eye-popping response to the news that chickens were moving in with Mrs Next Door announcing with a cheerful big smile, “Oh I hope our dog doesn’t kill your chickens!” Right on cue their snarling little terrier looked up and gave its distinctive teeth-baring growl. I scowled back giving it my best death-stare look.
The Country Mouse created a wonderful chook motel, with an adjoining weather and vermin-proof run complete with a proper roof, a range of perches and four separate laying boxes, so that the hens could feel very cosmopolitan while doing their egg laying in their own private studio apartments.
The backyard now echoes to ‘chooook ,chooook ,chooook’ (that’s us, not the chooks) and they answer back with the same call, with a quirky variation if we are slow letting them out in the morning to do their daily free ranging. Lining up at the gate they announce their displeasure with ‘oooo-uuuu-tttt!’
‘The girls’, as we call them, are more formally known as Gallus gallus domesticus and they are no slackers; one week after arriving in their new home we got our first tiny egg and on 3 December we had our first two-egg day - our hen pen has now become an egg shed.
